Covid-19: Thiruvananthapuram records highest percentage of local transmission cases in Kerala since May 4

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The capital recorded the highest percentage of local transmission cases ; 53% among all the districts in Kerala for the cases reported since May 4 till Thursday.
The percentage of local transmission in the district is well above the state percentage which is 14.48 as on Thursday. The district now accounts for 29% of all the local transmission cases reported in 14 districts since May 4.Within a week the percentage of local transmission cases has leapt from 13 to 53% in the district.
With contact cases far outnumbering imported cases in the district consistently for the past four days, Thiruvananthapuram is now the only district in the state to have more contact cases than imported cases since May 4. Of the 17 cases reported in the district till May 3, there were 5 contact cases and remaining were imported cases.
The alarming rate of local transmission in the district is perceived by the wide variation in percentage of contact cases in other districts and that of the capital. Ernakulam which has the second highest percentage of local transmission for the same period recorded 21.46 and five other districts have recorded local transmission rates above 10% between May 4 and July 9.
The upward trend of contact cases coupled with isolated cases with no known travel history of contact with Covid positives continued in the district on Thursday as well with 95 cases being reported. 78 cases were reported from Poonthura cluster alone as per official release while results till evening numbered more than 88 positives, according to official sources.
The worrying aspect is recurrence of isolated cases like three positives from Pattom; a couple employed at a private hospital testing positive at Kadakampally, positive case from Vattapara. Another auto driver has also been tested positive at Manacaud and source is unknown.
With unprecedented spurt in cases without sources, the disease investigation team has been struggling to cope with case load. There haven’t been evident links to similar isolated cases like nursery teacher testing positive at Pettah, security guard testing positive at Chackai and tea vendors testing positive in more than one locations in the city.
The officials assess that community outbreak may have happened simultaneously at Poonthura and there could be numerous super spreading events happening within the same cluster. While a major number of persons testing positive at Poonthura have been asymptomatic, some are being presented with clear symptoms. With community outbreak being confirmed in the area after it has been contained. Aggressive testing has been initiated employing multiple teams.
Rapid antigen testing was done at Community health centre, Ayush centre and Madrass hall on Thursday. Bringing slight relief to the district team over 200 samples which were tested at Aryanadu came out negative on Thursday. Eight cases were reported at Aryanadu in the last two days.